12. The coming to the use of reason not the time we come to know these maxims.
If by knowing and assenting to
them "when we come to the use of reason," be meant, that this is the time when they come to be taken notice of
by the mind; and that as soon as children come to the use of reason, they come also to know and assent to these
maxims; this also is false and frivolous. First, it is false; because it is evident these maxims are not in the mind so
early as the use of reason; and therefore the coming to the use of reason is falsely assigned as the time of their
discovery. How many instances of the use of reason may we observe in children, a long time before they have any
knowledge of this maxim, "That it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be?" And a great part of
illiterate people and savages pass many years, even of their rational age, without ever thinking on this and the like
general propositions. I grant, men come not to the knowledge of these general and more abstract truths, which are
thought innate, till they come to the use of reason; and I add, nor then neither. Which is so, because, till after they
come to the use of reason, those general abstract ideas are not framed in the mind, about which those general
maxims are, which are mistaken for innate principles, but are indeed discoveries made and verities introduced and
brought into the mind by the same way, and discovered by the same steps, as several other propositions, which
nobody was ever so extravagant as to suppose innate. This I hope to make plain in the sequel of this Discourse. I
allow therefore, a necessity that men should come to the use of reason before they get the knowledge of those
general truths; but deny that men's coming to the use of reason is the time of their discovery.
